Personally, I'm not impressed with the start button that Microsoft has brought back. The report I read said that it doesn't present the menu as expected, rather just brings up the 'start screen'. I anticipate this not being as popular as Microsoft hopes.

I think I will still stick to my Windows 7 Pro 64-BIT.I have zero Interest in turning my home built and designed rigs into giant smart phones.This is not my way at all.I own this machine and VPN it so I have Control over what I do whilst Online.I am not interested in owning a smart phone and will be a proud fliptop dinosaur until they stop making those.

And I do own Win 8 Pro which I purchased for 14.99 and loaded it and fooled with it.For what I do I can do it a lot better and faster just sticking on my Win 7.I also fooled with 3 or 4 different Apps which enable you to make your Win 8 look like XP,Win 7, etc like smart8,openshell..........still not impressed on Win8.Could be that in time I will just go Linux all the way.One never knows what I will build up next but I am now wondering if Windows has lost me for good.

The Windows 8 desktop is exactly the same as Windows 7. Your statement makes no sense.

Except it lacks a start menu, which is what he's probably referring to.

I have to agree though, I really wish desktop users could just disable the start screen completely. Of course it's good that MS is evolving Windows, and this isn't a matter of hating change just because (although there is a small minority of people in that group). It's the fact that their choice of UI is totally geared towards tablet users. It's actually a pretty good UI for tablets, and I'm impressed so far. I'm sure it is possible to get used to it after a while, and I'd be willing to do that - but it's not a step in the right direction as far as desktop users are concerned.

Not to mention they're perpetuating the confusion by keeping a desktop and start screen side by side and forcing users to constantly switch between the two.

I called it and Eweek confirmed it. Windows 8.1's boot-to-desktop and start-button do absolutely jack-all to fix the problems with Windows 8. The Start Screen still remains, hitting the start menu still brings it back up, and default applications are still in quote/unquote "Modern Style UI" format.

The very idea that business's are going to be attracted to a system that simply adds a single new window screen between bad design and usage is ludicrous. You might be able to make the argument that business's will get a kiosk mode that lets them turn off the start screen and only use the icons on the desktop. Fine, but /Linux systems have been doing that for what... over a decade? And even then, most applications can now be delivered through a browser... so... is a business really going to shell out how-ever much for a Windows License for a crippled Operating System they can't re-purpose for any other task and is horribly designed... or will a business continue to do what they've been doing... NOT buying Microsoft products that don't work?

According to the link to the other ARS article, the 'start button' will merely do exactly what bringing the cursor to the lower left of the screen does now, bring up the START screen, not a 'classic' list of available programs. This is not really a very big deal and seems designed more to fool people into thinking they are bringing back the classic interface.

However, as I use the system more and more I actually like it more and more. It's incredibly fast to boot, the sleep function works like a dream, and I don't use as many programs as I think I do because now that I'm getting used to the START screen I can find programs even more quickly than with the old system.

Giving us more options to size the tiles on the START screen is a big deal to me and will help me organize much better.

Now if they will just add 'log off' to the power option in the charms along with sleep, shutdown and restart, I will be a pretty happy camper.

Besides, I am now once again the hero in my family as more of them buy computers with Windows 8 and turn to me once again for advice. They'd all gotten so proficient with Windows I was beginning to feel quite useless.

This is a waste of time and money. The world just didn't want metro. Why is MS forcing it down everyone's throat?

And start8 is a very elegant solution, it has boot-to-desktop as a feature.

Yes, we should have all just listened to everyone who bitched about the addition of the start menu in the first place. Then we wouldn't have anyone complaining about its removal these days, since we would have never had it to begin with.

I frankly don't understand why M$ is claiming interest in Win8 being a business platform. Its a "skip". A skip, in my head, is an OS version either so bad, so poorly supported or so overwhelmingly confusing at launch that it reaches a point of disgust with the public. In such cases admins know better than to try to sell the OS to their co-workers in other departments, so by and large they "skip" its adaptation.

Just like Vista was a skip, like WinME was a skip. Selling consumers on it is bad enough. But to then have those consumers come into work and be "forced" to use it? They'd scream bloody murder no matter how good the IT department. The very name would set off support calls when workers realized what they were looking at on their non-touch monitor.

No way businesses are going to adopt such a helpdesk nightmare. Win8 is already dead for most major businesses.

Edit: I still don't understand why there cannot be a "compatibility boot" to Win7esk desktop. Compatibility mode was win7's saving grace for business adoption. "Run your WinXP apps in WinXP on Win7!" There you go, stop complaining and get used to the new OS. Or are they saving that for Winodws 9?

Personally, I'm not impressed with the start button that Microsoft has brought back. The report I read said that it doesn't present the menu as expected, rather just brings up the 'start screen'. I anticipate this not being as popular as Microsoft hopes.

NO ONE ever should have thought it would bring back the start menu, and if any article or blog post you read said that it would, they were idiots.

Too little, too late. Until Windows 8 can be used in a desktop environment with absolutely zero infiltrations from Metro (start screen, charms, search screen, network selection, etc.), this is an exercise in futility.

So basically by trying to "attract business users" MS is admitting that there's something wrong with Metro that's driving business users away?

Metro isn't driving business customers away per se. Businesses aren't out there switching to Chrome or Linux (though some will certainly do that as more businesses virtualize their desktops). It's just that Windows 8 offers nothing compelling over Windows 7. Windows 7 is going to be around for a long time so why should businesses change? What do they get from it? Given this and that even the average janitor in Redmond could figure it out I personally have to conclude the changes are directed more at the consumer market as a result of MS not liking what they are seeing there.

This is great. I'm really looking forward to this release. I like boot to desktop, and although the start menu coming back is not exactly as it was, I feel like it should be an acceptable compromise (and if not, I'm sure StartIsBack or Start8 will continue to fill the gap). Giving users the option to setup their system they way they want always avoids the types of problems people have been complaining about. They could have default to no start menu, don't boot to desktop. Most users probably couldn't be bothered to switch, but for those that wanted to the option would be available. They would never have had to put up with the complaints in the first place. Now if only they included the features found in ModernMix then it would be about as perfect as I could ask for (note: no affiliation to StarDock and I'm not trying to promote anything but I do like the gap they filled).

This is a waste of time and money. The world just didn't want metro. Why is MS forcing it down everyone's throat?

And start8 is a very elegant solution, it has boot-to-desktop as a feature.

Yes, we should have all just listened to everyone who bitched about the addition of the start menu in the first place. Then we wouldn't have anyone complaining about its removal these days, since we would have never had it to begin with.

You know, people always say this kind of garbage, but I don't remember very many people bitching about the introduction of the Start Menu. There also wasn't a proliferation of products to bring back Program Manager in Win95; quite the opposite, in fact.

Also, if you really want to argue from novelty on this, I suggest you throw out all your pens and use crayons instead. You can write just as well with crayons as with pens, after all, and they create less waste and are therefore better for the environment. What? You think that's a terrible idea? Well, you're just afraid of change, then. You should be more educated.

Regardless of how you feel about Windows 8 in general (me? Not a huge fan, but can't say I hate it outright), I am nothing short of ecstatic that MS is choosing to start releasing significant upgrades in "point" releases. If MS is off the mark with a feature or something plain doesn't work, they can release a free or reasonably priced update instead of a new OS.

Whether the incremental release brings you what you want is a different story all together.. but the concept itself a great in my book.